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Abstract: Using the Kobe earthquake of 1995 and the Mid-Java earthquake of 2006 as case studies, this paper discusses the process of providing cultural recovery assistance; it also analyses the term ‘civil society’, a term that reflects efforts to make assistance activities sustainable. The Kobe earthquake should be seen as a point of departure for citizen activism by volunteers; because of it, cultural recovery support was vigorously provided. Since people influenced by those support efforts later became involved in providing Mid-Java earthquake recovery assistance, both earthquake recovery support initiatives can be seen as part of an ongoing chain of events. In analysing the Kobe earthquake, it becomes clear that while there are many semantic meanings for and usages of the term ‘civil society’, it was incorporated into policy guidelines for recovery during a period of low economic growth, and a new civil society was envisioned in this period of social transformation. Organisations participating in assistance efforts following the Mid-Java earthquake sought to make ‘civil society’ a reality; this continued after the earthquake recovery was complete, and it comprised an attempt to build the connections within a civil society by looking to overcome many persistent social problems. The power of communication that ‘culture’ holds plays a large role in this. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Sappi Saiccor mill in Umkomaas, KwaZulu Natal (KZN) Province, is a global pulp producer. It is also a major emitter of noxious substances in the heavily polluted and historically marginalised South Durban area. Taking a qualitative, narrative approach, this paper examines Saiccor's legacy of contamination, community opposition to the mill, and responses of state actors responsible for governing industrial risk. Through a conceptual framework combining theories around participatory environmental governance, legitimacy and state capture, the article explores the extent to which measures deployed by/on behalf of the Sappi Saiccor mill to engage with local residents and activists can be considered legitimate. The paper argues that prevalent corporate instrumentalism and a lack of political will continue to undermine the legitimacy of community engagement processes, which remain characterised by mistrust. It concludes the South African state cannot be relied upon to support genuinely inclusive, deliberative, empowering and reflexive governance practices. It is therefore left to organised civil society to force discourse beyond hegemonic, ecologically-modernised, technocentric ideals, and to bring issues of power, agency, and social justice to the fore of public and policy debate. The way might then be paved for strong political leadership committed to transparent, equitable environmental governance processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the response of Athens, Greece, to the Covid-19 pandemic in relation to its un(der)documented immigrant populations. It argues that both the national and local levels of governance exhibited a "paradigmatic pragmatism" in their approach to the crisis. The study employs an interpretivist lens and utilises qualitative in-depth interviews and document reviews. By examining Athens as a case study, the paper highlights the significance of the urban scale in migration policies, emphasising the role of governance models, past migration experiences, and civil society. The development of a parallel vaccination program for un(der)documented immigrants is examined as a notable example of the pragmatism of both governance levels and local citizenship practice. The study aims to contribute to the understanding of local-level immigrant policies and the role of cities in the context of citizenship politics. By drawing lessons from major crises like the pandemic, it aims to inform the development of more inclusive migrant policies and effective governance structures while promoting new perspectives on membership, such as local citizenship. • Analysing Athens' pandemic response for local-level immigrant policy insights. • The vaccination program for the un(der)documented as an exemplification of local citizenship • Athens' case reveals the significance of the urban scale in migration policies. • Governance models, local experiences and civil society shaped Athens' response. • Both national and local levels showcased a 'paradigmatic pragmatist' attitude. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Kenya's new energy legislation provides a framework for participatory national energy planning. This planning process is intended to formulate a vision for the energy sector, and identify and prioritize energy programmes, projects and/or facilities that contribute to realizing the vision. This paper describes an initiative to structure and operationalize the participation of private sector, civil society, and development organizations in this new energy planning process. The initiative leverages knowledge from the field of sustainable transitions research; the transition management approach is applied to establish a transition arena where non-state actors in the energy sector deliberate and develop visions, pathways, and interventions to be presented for consideration during the preparation of the integrated national energy plan. A structure to institutionalize and operationalize the participation of private sector, civil society and development organizations in Kenya's national energy planning process is developed, as well as a standardized approach to develop non-state actor inputs for the preparation and cyclical review of Kenya's national energy plan. The focus of this paper is the inputs developed by non-state actors for Kenya's integrated national energy plan under the electricity access thematic area. • Knowledge, information & expertise amongst non-state actors to inform energy planning. • Need to structure and institutionalize participation of non-state actors in energy planning • Transition management approach facilitates participatory national energy planning. • Transition agenda developed for electricity access in Kenya. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper documents the initial phase of the "National Alien Services" program (LVV in its Dutch acronym), intended to shelter undocumented people in the Netherlands from 2019 to 2022. The programme established a national network of guidance and reception facilities for undocumented migrants in five major Dutch cities to put previous urban-level initiatives on a more uniform basis. This paper analyzes the implementation of the LVV in Amsterdam, shedding light on the emergence of a new hierarchy among irregular migrants based on whether they are regarded as deserving or undeserving to access these facilities. As we show through the voices of civil society, migrants, and local policy makers, this new "hierarchy of deservingness" has de facto shrunk the spaces for autonomy of local reception practices – thus reducing the number of undocumented migrants who can access shelter – and those spaces created by migrants' squatting movement in the city. By addressing the intersection of migration, reception, and urban policies through the lens of "deservingness", this paper supplements the theoretical debate by providing insights into how different actors negotiate hierarchies of deservingness at the crossroads of local and national governance levels, and how these dynamics interact with migrants' claim-making. • The research object: This article documents the initial phase of the so-called 'LVV program', which aimed to provide assistance to undocumented individuals in the Netherlands between 2019 and 2022. • The case study: The article focuses on the implementation of the program in Amsterdam and its implications for the diverse population of undocumented people in the city. • The main argument: The deportation logic that has inspired national migration policies in the last decade has infiltrated the management of undocumented individuals at the local level. This infiltration has had adverse effects on the capacity of local authorities and civil society to provide shelter for undocumented migrants and on the public support of undocumented migrants' movement in the city. • Methodological originality: The article uses a combination of ethnographic research and in-depth interviews with migrants, civil society and various policy interlocutors to examine the LVV implementation and its implications. • Theoretical Advancement: The article introduces the notion of "hierachy of deservingness" to examine how national and local authorities, in spite of tensions among them, deal with irregular migrants and manage their access to services. By distinguishing irregular migrants who are "deserving" of assistance from the "undeserving" ones, we show how authorities enrol a minority into state-led circuits of reception and define the other majority as expellable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the role of civil society in shaping content moderation governance arrangements in the United States. Drawing on prior research that recognizes the importance of civil society in shaping policy, this article analyzes the experiences of civil society practitioners engaged in content moderation activism. Based on in-depth original interviews with civil society practitioners, I demonstrate how civil society's activity in this space aligns with known regulatory standard-setting process competencies and suggest advocacy work benefits from the power of coalition lobbying and social capital. Moreover, I highlight the sense of frustration from some practitioners that they are not compensated by firms for their monitoring and reporting work that improves platforms' products, and I offer preliminary reasons for why practitioners contest moderation norms. The paper's insights contribute to the study of platform governance by illuminating informal mechanisms utilized by civil society, which holds broader implications for understanding the dynamics of non-state actors in shaping online platforms and their policies. • New empirical evidence contributes insight into the experiences of U.S. civil society actors involved in platform governance. • U.S. civil society practitioners engage in content moderation activism via known regulatory competencies. • Informal mechanisms such as networks, coalitions, and knowledge sharing are used to contest digital governance arrangements. • The power of coalition lobbying, dynamics of civil society-platform interactions, and motives for contestation are explored. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is concerned with the reproduction of rural elites and the role of volunteering and participation in rural civil society institutions. Set in the context of popular discourses of the gentleman farmer and the agricultural elite as historic (as opposed to contemporary) leaders in the countryside, this research extends longstanding debates on rural class politics and gentrification, and resonates with a renewed sociological interest in the elites in society. Focusing on senior volunteer roles in the Royal Welsh Agricultural Society (RWAS), we explore the connections between social and cultural capital, the maintenance of moral boundaries, and the relationship of these processes with recruitment at the committee level. Our findings indicate that systems of patronage remain significant in rural contexts, and that these systems interrelate with professional and business fields, and with embedded social and intergenerational networks. Data depicts an organisation that is looking to balance the sustained benefits to organisational capacity brought through longstanding obligations of public service, duty, and family ties, with an acknowledged need to recognize diversity and foster inclusivity. This requirement, however, is largely articulated and confined to considerations of gender, age and to a lesser extent, multiculturalism. • This paper pulls together debates in rural studies concerning discourses of power and the production of rural elites, symbolic components of class politics, and the role of 'elite volunteering' in civil society institutions. • We present an in-depth empirical case study of the Royal Welsh Show and explore the reproduction of patronage and positions of authority in this established Welsh rural institution. • We discuss the shifting leadership profile of the show and the organisation's role in embodying and facilitating civic exclusion and expansion in rural space, inclusive of attitudes towards equality, diversity and associated institutional restructuring. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Paper explores the local state, a framework to connect analyses of state, market and civil society in communities below the national level. • The local state concept is employed here to assess climate change adaptation (CCA), focusing on a case study of water resources in Tucson, AZ. • The Tucson case examines rainwater harvesting and the role of the water industry, local government organizations and civil society groups. • Barriers to CCA can be explained in the context of pre-existing policies and the complex dynamics of the local state. As climate change becomes a more obvious existential threat to many communities, sharper tools are needed to analyze policymaking and especially the variations in effective adaptive planning. While policy creation, preparedness and disaster management are essentially local activities, much analysis simply focuses on cities and overlooks robust tools to understand what happens within communities of all types. This paper explores the local state, an analytical framework which can connect our understanding of state, market and civil society within communities below the level of the nation state. The local state concept is resurgent within the academic literature and this paper shows the potential of this analysis, drawing on empirical examples of climate change adaptation from Tucson AZ and New Orleans, coupled with broader discussion from several countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The social movement theories, particularly emerged since the late 1960s and the empirical studies informed by these theories occupy a decisive space in the current sociological studies of social movements. Often, the theories that emerged in the American and European contexts overlooked the significance of 'political sociology' as a theoretical terrain while conceptualizing contemporary social movements. Thus, this paper attempted to reinvent the significance of political sociology in two-ways: a) it critically engaging with the classical tradition of political sociology; b) critical scrutiny of the major trends appeared in the sub-field of social movements within the disciplinary domain of sociology in India since the 1980s has been undertaken. Given this, the paper recognizes the theoretical urge for a new framework to understand social movements in reference to the specificities of the non-Western societies like India, and thereby proposes an approach termed as the postcolonial political sociology of social movements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Accelerating social and environmental change raises pressing questions about how existing institutions can be reformed to mount a more effective response. In this context, goal-based governance has been widely adopted in order to mobilise existing bodies to agree shared goals and develop common purpose. Increasingly employed in sustainability governance at the international scale, goal-based governance concerns setting pan-organisational goals and mobilising to deliver them. There is growing recognition that this approach needs to be downscaled to the local level in ways that can increase democratic engagement in order to realise significant change. This paper examines the opportunities and challenges involved in doing this in Cornwall, UK. We draw on collaborative research with representatives from statutory organisations as well as civic and civil society to highlight: (1) the significance of institutional structures, culture and relationships; (2) the need to adopt innovative participatory methods to engage and enlist civic and civil society organisations in goal-setting; and (3) the importance of ensuring delivery. The paper explores the extent to which local institutions can engage in goal-based and collaborative governance to respond to the challenges of sustainability in ways that reflect specific geo-political and cultural contexts as well as responding to international demands for greater sustainability. The findings provide insights that have relevance for other contexts as local leaders experiment to better recognise, reflect and respond to the social, ecological and political challenges of our time. • Goal-based governance for sustainability is yet to be adequately implemented on local scales. • Actors often excluded from sustainability governance decisions can help enact meaningful and transformational change. • Institutions need to be more reflexive if goal-based governance is to be locally relevant and democratic. • Our study offers insight into the practical realities of localising and democratising goal-based governance in rural areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rural areas in the Nordic countries often face challenges such as demographic change and the closure of public services. To address this situation, some rural communities have developed solutions which can be characterised as social innovation. This paper analyses 18 such community-driven social innovation projects across the Nordic countries and seeks to examine the importance of different actors in the initiation and implementation phases of such projects. Based on qualitative analysis, focusing on the different stages of community-driven social innovation, the paper assesses the importance of different actors in developing each of the projects. The analysis demonstrates the relative importance of community members, civil society organisations, the local public sector, the private sector, and regional and national authorities, in terms of their respective involvements in the initiation and implementation processes for these projects. The key findings from this paper emphasise the differences between initiation and implementation for each of these community-driven social innovation projects. The initiation phase is highly dependent upon community members, civil society organisations and the local public sector, whereas it is primarily civil society organisations which dominate the implementation phase. Central to initiating and sustaining community-driven projects is the capacity of local actors to develop ideas, to find resources and to manage decision-making. • Community-driven social innovation (SI) can be characterised by new models of collaboration across spaces and beyond the community level. • Functional networks, upskilling in a supportive environment and community members banding together are crucial for SI. • There is a shift in the involvement of actors from the initiation phase to the implementation phase in the SI process. • Central to initiating and sustaining SI is the capacity of local actors to develop ideas, collect resources, and manage decision-making. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• This study explores the role of the local community level in a transition to long term sustainable development. • It places a focus on institutional capacity (frames of reference, relational resources and mobilization capacity) • Empirical work was carried out in two small Swedish municipalities: Alingsås and Övertorneå. • The work illustrates the importance of individuals with often overlapping roles. • The work identifies the need for a broader consensus that sustainable development requires radical change. This study explores the local municipality as an important arena for developing and implementing initiatives for a transition to long-term sustainable development. It focuses on institutional conditions that support the integration of 'radical', transition-oriented perspectives and ideas (i.e. perspectives stressing the need for changed social power relations and 'other' norms and visions for the future,) in local governance, with a specific focus on small municipalities. Inspired by transition literature and theory on institutional capacity, the paper explores frames of reference, relational resources, and mobilisation capacity. Empirically, the paper builds on research in two small municipalities in Sweden, where we studied documents on policy for local development, and energy and land-use planning, and carried out qualitative interviews with politicians, planners, and actors from local industry and civil society. The study provides a rich empirical illustration of specific conditions that affect the possibilities to work with transition-oriented perspectives in small municipalities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The figure of the older volunteer involved with the civil society of rural communities is written onto by the dual demands to age well and productively; to benefit themselves but also to be a good citizen and to contribute to their communities and to wider society. Considering this popular narrative in depth, this paper brings two bodies of literature into useful dialogue. First, we consider the re-emerging interest in the geographies of ageing and, in particular, the role of place and environment in shaping the process of how we experience growing older and the later stage of our lives. Second, we consider that expanding body of work which focuses on the geographies of volunteering, and particularly those studies which account for the shifting landscape of volunteering and the increasing role of voluntary organisations in rural communities. Our entry point into both of these sets of literature is through the emotional and affective experience of both volunteering and rural ageing. The paper draws on case study data gathered in rural Wales to demonstrate how individuals actively strive to maintain their sense of self-identity and continuity of place through the voluntary work they are engaged in. In doing so, the paper makes the argument that ageing in rural places can be understood as a type of stewardship of place wherein the need to preserve continuity of the self in later life becomes intertwined with a desire to support the continuity of place(s). • Older people engage with the rural environment through a diverse a varied set of voluntary practices. • The voluntary contributions many people make to place(s) in later life challenge ideas of dependence in rural ageing. • Rural volunteering can be understood as a process of continuity of identity and contributing to a continuity of place. • Stewardship provides a way of conceptualising how older people engage with the rural environment through voluntary pursuits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recently, the concept of the smart city has gained growing popularity. As cities worldwide have set the aim to harness digital technologies to their development, increasing focus came to lie on the potential challenges and concerns related to data-driven urban practices. In the existing literature, these challenges and concerns have been dominantly approached from a pragmatic approach based on the a priori assumed 'goodness' of the smart city; for a small group of critics, the very notion of the smart city is questionable. This paper takes the middle-way by interrogating how municipal and civil society stakeholders problematize the challenges and concerns related to data-driven practices in five Dutch cities, and how they act on these concerns in practice. The lens of problematization posits that the ways of problematizing data-driven practices contribute to their actual enactment, and that this is an inherently political process. The case study shows that stakeholders do not only perceive practical challenges but are widely aware of and are (partly) pro-actively engaging with perceived normative-ethical and societal concerns, leading to different (sometimes inter-related) technological, legal/political, organizational, informative and participative strategies. Nonetheless, the explicit contestation of smart city policies through these strategies remains limited in scope. The paper argues that more research is needed to uncover the structural-institutional dynamics that facilitate and/or prevent the repoliticization of smart city projects. • The lens of problematization offers insights into the politics of smart city-building. • Five strategies addressing smart city-related concerns are identified. • The explicit contestation of smart city policies remains limited in scope. • Further research is needed into how context-specific factors shape smart city-building. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article explores how the ideas of Hannah Arendt can further public relations' understanding of organizational listening and its role in civil society. We draw on three major theoretical concepts from Arendt and scholars studying her work—plurality, interspaces, and lamp holders—and contextualize them within existing civil society research in public relations. Reading Arendt into organizational listening and civil society literature yields insights for how public relations contributes to the maintenance of structures and spaces for deliberation and civil society. Her theory points toward the concepts of bracketing and unbracketing as ways to enter civic spaces with an awareness of power and identity. As research on organizational listening has yet to fully identify how listening can contribute to supporting representative deliberation in polarized societies, this paper helps to theoretically position listening within civil society and provides initial suggestions as to how civic-minded listening can be incorporated into public relations practices aimed at building community. • The purpose of the paper is to explore how Arendt's political theory augments public relations' understanding of organizational listening in civil society. • Reading Arendt into organizational listening and civil society literature provides direction as to how public relations can strengthen civic bonds. • Arendt's political theory points toward new ways to implement organizational listening including bracketing and unbracketing. • This paper positions listening within civil society and provides initial suggestions as to how civic-minded practice has the potential to benefit communities as well as organizations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Henri Lefebvre develops the term, détournement, to help analyse how certain events can make urban spaces more 'plastic' and uncertain and thus more readily malleable for appropriation by groups and organisations. In the literature, however, there has less been discussion about how events of détournement can lead to often intense dialogue and internal divisions within and between state departments, and between the state and groups in civil society about how these uncertain spaces can be moulded strategically to suit certain agendas and projects. This paper starts to fill this scholarly gap by applying Lefebvre's insights to examine the Park Lane Road Improvement Scheme in London, 1955–1962. This road scheme built a dual carriageway system between Hyde Park Corner and Marble Arch and unintentionally generated a moment of détournement in the surrounding spaces. The paper explores how four distinct publics emerged around the road scheme to discuss and elicit support for their respective agendas on how these uncertain spaces might be 'stabilised' once more. The four publics were: a 'civic public' assembled by the London County Council; a 'local amenities public' created by the Royal Fine Arts Commission; a 'national heritage public' assembled by the Ministry of Works; and a 'free speech public' constructed by defenders of Speakers' Corner in Hyde Park. The paper demonstrates how a road scheme can generate competing claims to publicness, which not only incorporate the state, but also open up strategic opportunities for progressive movements to extend and develop their rights to the city. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Introduces new data on rebel group formation in African states (1997–2015). • Indicates that most rebel groups formed in rural areas and did not emerge from local protests. • Demonstrates the need for more theory on the pathways to internal armed conflict. • Demonstrates the need for – and challenges of collecting – systematic evidence on armed group formation. Theories of internal armed conflict onset often conceptualize an eruption emerging from pre-existing, non-violent opposition movements or organizations. This paper argues that this is not the most common pathway to armed conflict in Africa. It introduces new data on rebel group formation in 47 African states (1997–2015) that offers a more complete picture than existing conflict datasets; about two-thirds of the groups in the new dataset are not named in standard conflict datasets. The strong majority of these rebel groups formed in rural areas; did not emerge from nearby protest movements or civil society organizations; and initially did not benefit from substantial material resources nor commit large-scale violence. Analyses suggest that rebel groups forming in rural parts of African states draw less often on pre-war, public, non-violent contestation than those of urban areas. The paper highlights the need for more theory on the varied pathways to internal armed conflict, and the importance of – and challenges of collecting – systematic evidence on armed group formation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores water justice struggles in the understudied region of Iraq and Iraqi Kurdistan through a focus on two water justice movements, one civil society campaign, and a related event. While most of the relevant literature in geography and cognate fields has thoroughly dissected inter-State hydropolitical quarrels, discussed water justice from a legal perspective, and analysed water conflicts, less attention has been paid to bottom-up movements, to their visions and actions within a materially and socially challenging environment, and to their engagement with the state. Relying on published material as well as primary research, we show how Iraqi water activists seek to strike a balance between engaging institutions and moving beyond them, across ethno-religious divides and advocacy registers, in their quest to re-signify and re-common waterscapes. We argue that it is not despite all odds, but rather because of all odds, that Iraqi activists showcase such a developed awareness of their role and transformative potential along the rugged path of democratisation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article embarks on a comprehensive examination of two research questions. The first question is "What are the AI-enabled applications, which are developed and deployed in Greece in the border management field?". The goal is to provide to the reader a thorough listing of these technologies, as well as information regarding the companies that develop them, and the EU funding schemes that support them. By investigating this question, the paper assesses whether there exists transparent information regarding the procurement, development, and deployment phases of such AI tools in Greece, with a keen focus on the accessibility of related documents and data to civil society actors.The second question is "To what extent are the development and deployment of these AI-enabled border management applications in compliance with the applicable data protection provisions?". There the goal is to register the different breaches of data protection provisions when such AI tools are developed and deployed in practice, taking into account the findings of civil society actors that have challenged the lawful use of such applications in accordance with the related national legal framework enforcing Regulation 2016/679 (GDPR) and transposing the Directive 2016/680. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Calls for greater transparency in fisheries are becoming increasingly common. They promise better evaluation of management interventions, more participatory decision-making, effective monitoring and surveillance, and sustainable and equitable exploitation of shared resources. However, there is often a lack of clarity regarding what is meant by 'transparency' and how it is best achieved. This term is often used interchangeably, by both decision-makers and civil society, and sometimes inappropriately when a more specific term may be called for. This can lead to the propagation of sweeping assumptions and reductive views on what fisheries transparency is, what it can achieve, what the costs and benefits will be, and to whom. As such, attempts to realize the benefits that transparency promises for fisheries often struggle once they are systematically applied from concept through legislation to practice. This paper explores the various manifestations of transparency in the context of fisheries governance and management as well as its limitations. Subsequently, to provide clarity and broaden the transparency-related discourse, a simple framework is presented of the multifaceted nature of transparency in fisheries. This exploration is crucial because, when harnessed correctly, transparency has the potential to support a more sustainable and equitable future. However, realizing this potential requires deeper appreciation of the intricacies of transparency beyond surface-level interpretations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A large-scale transition of food consumption in high-income countries is required to mitigate adverse impacts on the climate and the environment. To further understand which actions can contribute to triggering societal tipping in sustainability transitions empirical observations and a closer link to existing theories is urgently needed. We integrate renowned models of behavior change, food consumption, and marketing into the framework of positive tipping points in sustainability transitions using an empirical analysis of four case studies from Denmark. The proposed framework specifies enabling conditions, interventions, and reinforcing feedback. The case studies suggest that the factors identified from existing consumer-oriented theoretical frameworks can lead to societal tipping points. Also, the transition to sustainable food consumption requires not only engagement from all groups of actors—business/industry, policy, civil society, and consumers—but also pooling and aligning the available resources to trigger a societal tipping point. The case studies provide interesting examples of how influential single players can scale up system change. The paper concludes with a critical reflection of tipping points in sustainability transitions of the food system. • Transition research benefits from insights on consumers' behavioral drivers. • A mix of interventions is needed to accelerate the transition of the food system. • Level of policy commitment determines the speed of the transition. • A radical step by a large retail chain will likely cause positive cascading effects. • Strong formalized networks foster vertical and horizontal cooperation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract While vaccine-critical activism has been widely documented and discussed, comparatively little has been said about the concerted response of pro-vaccine activists defending the majority view. This paper explores two case studies of pro-vaccine activism in Australia and the United States (US). It shows how pro-vaccine views and behaviours can take varying forms due to different aims and methods of engagement – oppositional counteractivities in favour of vaccination in Australia, and issue-based advocacy as part of a political alliance in the US. The focus in Australia comes from a pro-science stance and includes 'skeptics' against pseudoscience directly opposing vaccine-critical groups. In the US, the focus takes the form of an issue-specific campaign that has arisen from existing pro-vaccine parent blogs and discussion groups pushing for policy change rather than public confrontation. These case studies exemplify how pro-vaccine activism can take varying forms of either reinforcing the mainstream view or countering digression from it. Drawing on qualitative research, this paper aims to examine the types of practices and strategies employed by activists to voice their support of vaccination, and discusses the means, messages, and motivations of pro-vaccine activism. It ends with an argument for why a study – of public support for in addition to studying public opposition to vaccination – can help to better understand vaccination views and behaviours. These findings have wider implications for the study of counter-activism and the polarisation of civil society groups. Highlights • Pro-vaccine views and behaviours are understudied. • Case studies on pro-vaccine activist groups in Australia and the United States. • Pro-vaccine activism reinforces the mainstream or counters digression from it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Despite its popularity, civil society remains a troubling concept for many. It has been variously critiqued for masking the operation of power, for universalising a situated normative order, and for homogenising the diversity of bodies, things and affects that comprise political and social lives. In this special issue we seek to probe these debates through a specific engagement with the concept of 'civility'. As populist and right-wing political movements gain in strength and prominence across the globe, it seems a suitable moment to consider the role of civility in both political contestation and everyday lives, while reflecting on the implications for concepts in political geography. In this introduction we outline these debates while introducing the specific contribution of each of the papers. Highlights • Examines the key critiques of civil society from a feminist, post-colonial, Marxist and post-structural standpoints. • Sets debates concerning civility into the wider context of the political geographies of civil society. • Introduces the contributions of the papers in the special issue Rethinking the spaces of civil society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) agreed by Heads of Government in 2015 represent a major multilateral effort to shift the world towards more sustainable and resilient pathways, also taking into account the needs of developing countries. The SDG Agenda calls for a global partnership – at all levels – between all countries and stakeholders who need to work together to achieve the goals and targets, including a broad spectrum of actors such as multinational businesses, local governments, regional and international bodies, and civil society organizations. The purpose of this paper is to present a comprehensive review of the literature and develop a novel framework in order to tackle the barriers and challenges to operationalize and monitor the implementation of the SDGs. To achieve this, this paper reports on a state-of-the-art review of the SDGs, with a particular emphasis on their applications and linkages with sustainability science and aspects of knowledge management. This paper also reviews the rationale and aims of the Sustainable Development Goals, outlines some of the problems and barriers related to their implementation, and presents some areas which deserve future attention. Ultimately, this paper seeks to uncover the various gaps and suggests some means via which some of challenges seen in the accomplishment of the 17 SDGs may be faced. Highlights • The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) should shift the world towards a sustainable and resilient pathway. • The SDG Agenda calls for global partnerships at all levels. • A novel framework to tackle barriers and challenges is needed. • We need to operationalize and monitor the implementation of the new 2030 agenda. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Acceleration of the applications of cutting edge science is often most likely in situations involving conflict and warfare between different groups. That is the focus of this paper. It asks what we know of the past, present and possible future applications of advances in our understanding of the brain in the development of chemical weapons, and what might best be done to moderate the most dangerous aspects of that process at the present time, particularly by members of civil society. The paper therefore begins by examining this possibility of hostile manipulation of the brain in some detail. It then briefly reviews the current state of the chemical and biological arms control and disarmament regime as embodied in the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BTWC) and the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) following the 2016 8th Five Year Review Conference of the BTWC and in the lead up to the 2018 4th Five Year Review Conference of the CWC. Finally, our civil society initiative to assist in achieving a successful outcome of the 2018 CWC Review Conference is described. This initiative involves the production of a multi-authored edited book, to be published in advance of the Review Conference by the UK Royal Society of Chemistry that explores many of the critical issues facing the CWC States Parties as they seek to agree effective measures to prevent the development and use of chemical weapons, as the life and chemical sciences advance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, philantrocapitalism has surfaced as one of the liveliest expressions of neoliberalism. The current global concern and anxiety over an unfolding socioecological catastrophe provides fertile ground for the emergence of self-proclaimed capitalist saviours and of new forms of aid governance. Water has not been exempted from this trend. Using assemblage thinking, the paper takes as case studies three water charities involved in the global quest to solve the water crisis to illustrate how they deterritorialise – differently but in an interconnected way – water into a commodity. We show how these charities contribute to reterritorialize water on commercial and financial circuits, thus leading – to varying extents – to the insulation of water from public debate and foreclosing the opportunity for an active public engagement of the civil society. The paper thereby also serves to demonstrate how charities both reproduce and are produced by the neoliberalisation of the water crisis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There seems to be some evidence that Germany is turning from being a 'domestic' to a 'public' gender regime. The extension of public childcare, increasing female labour market participation rates and the introduction of gender quotas, among other changes, point to this development. However, a detailed analysis reveals an ambivalent and even contradictory trajectory. This development can only be understood by applying an intersectional perspective and looking at families with different socioeconomic backgrounds, class, and gender. By focusing on family households in which women are the main earners, this paper illustrates changes and stability in different domains and contributes to the understanding of the German gender regime's trajectory. On the basis of a qualitative study conducted in West and East Germany, the article shows that many women who are the main breadwinners in their families are in this position not because of modernised gender relations and by their own choice, but 'involuntarily', because of their partners' weak labour market position and increasing pressure within the German welfare state to earn their own living and contribute to covering the needs of the household through gainful employment. Many female-breadwinner families do not live reversed, modernised gender roles, but face an above-average risk for poverty and have little room for manoeuvre. Political and economic factors, as well as norms (in the domains of polity, economy and civil society), help to explain these findings. We see mainly neoliberal, activation policies directed at households with low resources, whereas the institutional framework for households with higher incomes has remained relatively stable. The results of the study show that dual-earner households are not necessarily progressive and dual earning is a poor indicator of a gender regime change. • There is some evidence that the German system is moving from a 'domestic' to a 'public' gender regime. However, we see a quite ambivalent trajectory. • By focusing on households where women are the main earners, this paper contributes to the understanding of the trajectory of the German gender regime. • Female breadwinner families often have a poverty risk above average and few room for manoeuvre. • Activating policies are addressed to households with low resources, whereas the institutional framework for high income households has remained stable. • Applying an intersectional perspective, the study helps to understand how different policies play out if social class is taken into account. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores two strategies that the Facebook Oversight Board has available to build its own legitimacy. It argues that the Board's members perform as apolitical decision-makers. With that goal, the Board has portrayed international human rights law as a set of exogenous and universal principles that human rights experts can translate and implement on social media. The paper suggests that, instead of hiding its power behind alleged translations of higher principles, the Board could try to build its legitimacy by promoting the wider involvement of civil society. The Board could wield its power to strengthen civil society's participation in Facebook's drafting of content moderation rules. The Board could then present itself as a legitimate body not because it applies international law but because it encourages the participation of more actors and defers to their judgment. Despite the many limitations of this proposal, it would include more actors in the governance of online speech instead of shielding experts from participatory politics. • This paper traces the strategies that the Facebook Oversight Board has pursued to build its legitimacy.. • This paper suggests that the board should try to build its legitimacy through the wider participation of civil society. • This paper maps costs of delegating the representation of the public to civil society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The last three decades have witnessed increasing interest in the connections between migration and development. Within this body of work less attention has been paid to the ways in which ideas of race and racialised histories and geographies shape the migration-development nexus. Focusing on diasporic communities as key actors within this nexus and using empirical material from Great Britain's Department for International Development (DfID), this paper explores the shifting constructions of 'the diaspora' within the global development context from DfID's inception in 1997 to its demise in 2020. Constructions of the diaspora-development nexus can be framed as a (shifting) assemblage, bringing together contemporary post-colonial politics of belonging, the racialised histories and geographies of development and the changing (neoliberal) architectures and cultures of development. The paper concludes that in this context, diasporic-centred development can be considered a racialised socio-political mechanism, shaped by the shifting politics of race and belonging, which are themselves bound to colonial pasts and contemporary colonialities. This attends to processes of inclusion (and exclusion) in the global development sphere in contemporary Britain and speaks to the need to think more widely about how race intersects with the migration-development nexus. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• India is a least likely case for welfare expansion, challenges dominant explanations and offers a new case. • Welfare expansion accompanied by deepening of democratic state is a legacy of civil society mobilization. • State-civil society dynamics can converge into sustained patterns of both policy and institutional transformation and defending the reforms against political attacks. In the past two decades India experienced an unprecedented expansion of the rights-based welfare. This expansion cut across a range of sectors − education, employment, public health, poverty reduction − but was also accompanied by a dramatic expansion and deepening of state institutions and a shift from patronage politics to citizen empowerment. In this paper we show that India was a least likely case for welfare expansion and that contrary to what the traditional welfare state literature suggests, civil society was a key driver of reform, but even more vitally has played a significant role in institutionalizing reforms, especially at the local level. We focus on the case of the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, the world's largest public works program, to discuss how civil society in India effectively framed welfare issues, mobilized to defend the law, helped institutionalize new governance structures like social audits by working with the state and are ensuring continuous accountability by cultivating what we call "user publics". We draw on the existing literature, fieldwork on village level welfare reform in different subnational regions of India, direct involvement in civil mobilization around rights based laws for over a decade and an ongoing project in which we are collaborating with some of the key architects of the reforms including an archive of over 3000 primary documents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, an analysis of civic initiatives to collectively realise a particular community ambition amongst informal settlers in a Ghanaian metropolitan area is presented. This community ambition is grounded in collective intent with no government or city authority intervention. Using secondary data review and interviews conducted in two selected neighbourhoods in the Accra Metropolitan Area, the findings show that self-governance mechanism has the potential to support informal settlers' capacity in terms of adapting to changing environmental situations by mutual cooperation and consensus building. The paper recommends a relook of planners' role in spatial planning in Ghana, emphasising a shift from development decision making to actors and facilitators of socio-spatial initiatives by community residents. This changing role may lead to suppression of the negatives and maximisation of the positives of self-governed initiatives for the benefit of society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• I analyse FLEGT VPA's democratising agenda and civil society participation in Laos. • As well as governmentality exercised by the EU and its development agency. • Lao state showed 'counter-conduct' against independent from state civil society. • VPA's 'rendering technical' facilitated setting up of easily monitored CSOs. • EU's governmentality and the Lao counter-conduct are mutually co-constructive. This paper analyses the European Union's (EU's) democratising agenda within the frame of the EU's Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade (FLEGT) Voluntary Partnership Agreement (VPA) in Laos. In particular, it focuses on the requirement for the participation of civil society organisations (CSOs) in the VPA and the Lao state actors' responses to this requirement. I frame the VPA's democratising agenda and its conditionality of civil society participation as acts of governmentality exercised by the EU in Laos. This EU governmentality is exercised through the EU and EU member states' funded development partner in the frame of their project supporting the FLEGT VPA process in Laos. The Lao government responses and strategies to the EU governmentality resulted on the one hand in the Lao state's governmentality towards domestic CSOs, and in counter-conduct (i.e. a subtle and sly resistance to some aspects of the VPA) on the other. First, by tracing the establishment of the Lao FLEGT Civil Society Organisations Network (FLEGT CSO Network), I highlight the trend of depoliticisation and rendering technical, where the EU-funded development partner, with full support and backing from the Lao state, trained the CSOs in various VPA and timber legality issues. In the training, the CSOs were given specific roles and tasks, building up their fields of expertise, and were integrated in the formal VPA organisational structures, which allowed for their scrutiny and tight survelience by the state. Second, I analyse the counter-conduct by the Lao government against a civil society that is independent from the state, which the government manifested through further disempowerment of CSOs and tightening of the CSO regulation shortly after the FLEGT CSO Network was established, while at the same time simulating democratisation by welcoming CSOs' participation in the VPA. Summoning CSOs as compliant actors and unpaid service providers working for and alongside the state was in part enabled by the VPA's own rendering technical approach. Hence, the EU's VPA governmentality and the Lao state counter-conduct mutually reinforced one another, even if their initial agendas around democratisation and CSO engagement in forest governance and the VPA diverged. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hazardous child labor in Nepal is a serious concern, particularly in the brick kiln industry. Although a range of interventions have been implemented in Nepal to address hazardous child labor, there is a lack of research to both measure success and shape further development in interventions that integrate sound child protection practices to ensure the wellbeing of all children. This paper provides a review of the literature outlining interventions for children working in brick kilns in Nepal, and presents preliminary case study findings of one current intervention in the Kathmandu Valley. The paper highlights the strength of applying foundational child protection principles and advocates for the development and implementation of future programs underpinned by broad civil society principles within a child rights and protection framework. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper questions under what conditions the social foundation necessary for the construction and sustenance of civil society are present in post-colonial social formations, and the extent to which there has been a need to develop concessionary politics to maintain a project of rule. It utilizes Partha Chatterjee's usage of Gramsci's political society to understand how Cambodia's ILO-led garment factory monitoring regime secures legitimacy not by the participation of worker citizens in the matters of the state, but by claiming to provide for their well being. I argue that the hegemonic project is fraught by virtue of the fact that consent-seeking forms of regulation, which aim to prevent strikes through trade union membership and tripartitism, have reached their limit and spilled over and into a disaggregated, messier terrain of struggles akin to political society. To develop the argument that workers' politics cannot be expressed in state-civil society relations, I present case studies of two forms of protest. The first form is distinguished by mass faintings, which I characterize as ‘visceral protest’ against the terms of workers' insertion into industrial capitalism. The second is large-scale, worker-led strikes that signal a ‘politics of social disorder’ is emerging, characterized by extra-legal, disruptive, and sometimes violent protest. The paper calls for a re-politicization of labor, and research attuned to workers' ambitions that cannot be reduced to a stable location or sphere within state-civil society relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To address increasing climatic variability and extremes, cities are gradually forced to develop climate change adaptation strategies that can ensure a continuous and transformative adaptation process. There is widespread consensus that the sustainable establishment of such strategies requires transdisciplinary approaches, that is, the involvement of internal and external stakeholders (state, civil society and market actors) to become part of the change and find innovative ways to unite their efforts and capacities. However, there is little research and hardly any empirical evidence on the process of stakeholder involvement and co-production in the development of municipal adaptation strategies. Against this background, this paper examines the factors that influence how and why different stakeholders are involved (or excluded) during the processes of developing adaptation strategies, and how this gets reflected in process outcomes. Based on applied participatory analysis of two pioneering municipalities in Germany and Sweden, the paper identifies and contrasts existing patterns to feed back into both theory and practice. Synergies, mismatches, barriers and driving forces for adaptation co-production are identified and contrasted with current adaptation discourses. The results highlight how the level of internal and external stakeholder involvement is conditional on (changes in) the broader governance context, and the associated power constellations in which stakeholders act (e.g., standing of departments, proximity to the decision-making body, changes in [or constellations of] political parties, contractual arrangements for staff, individual champions, progress in mainstreaming). On this basis, conclusions are drawn regarding how to foster sustainable and transformative adaptation through increased stakeholder involvement. The results and conclusions are crucial to advance theory on adaptation co-production, providing a basis for further analyses, research and action. They inform how existing theory, policies and/or guidelines for strategic adaptation planning need to be revisited to support change across current risk governance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Dominant paradigms of global development have historically been devoid of emotions, connected with racialized and gendered ideas of rationality and civility. Within contemporary scholarship there is however increasing recognition of the importance of emotions for understanding development processes. This paper adds to this body of work by exploring the ways that emotions shape how people who are trying to 'do' development actually do it. Drawing on empirical material from conversations with civil society activists based on the Caribbean islands of Grenada and Barbados, this article explores some of the emotions that are present within civil society organizing and makes the case that in this context emotions are not just felt, they are generative of civil society organizing and wider development processes. Focusing on shame, the article demonstrates how emotions are produced relationally within civil society organizing, how emotions are generative and can co-construct spaces for civil society and how civic organizing can act as counter-expressions to these feelings. Emotions are then constitutive of global development, yet often neglected in dominant discourses of civil society within the development sphere, with professional subjectivities dominant. • There is increasing recognition of the importance of emotions for understanding development processes. • This paper adds to this body of work by exploring the ways that emotions shape how people who are trying to 'do' development actually do it. • In the context of civil society organising, emotions are seen as generative of development processes. • Emotions are then part of global development, yet often neglected in dominant discourses where professional subjectivities dominate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent years have witnessed renewed academic interest in community as both an organizing concept and empirical case study. While previous work on community was largely limited to descriptive accounts of people's interactions in particular places, recent research has provided broader and more critical understandings of community by making connections between social imaginaries and social actions. This paper contributes to this work by applying a multilayered critical theory approach to the study of community. Starting from a general position that views community as a set of cognitively stabilized ideas and expectations, this approach compares discourses at different social levels of community in terms of how they unfold over time. The paper then applies this approach to experiences of community amongst older people in three rural places in England and Wales. Drawing on materials from interviews with older people and stakeholders, the paper explores the extent to which institutional discourses of community include different points of view and interpersonal discourses draw on reflective discourses. The empirical study highlights how community represents both a social system and a space in which individuals learn to live with others in the context of common practices and rule systems. It is also clear from the study that civil society and state actors need to develop new ideas, resources and practices to transform ageing from a demographic descriptor of rural places to an essential component of a shifting rural community discourse. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the 1980s, many developing countries have introduced policies to promote seed industry growth and improve the delivery of modern science to farmers, often with a long-term goal of increasing agricultural productivity in smallholder farming systems. Public, private, and civil society actors involved in shaping policy designs have, in turn, developed competing narratives around how best to build an innovative and sustainable seed system, each with varying goals, values, and levels of influence. Efforts to strike a balance between these narratives have often played out in passionate discourses surrounding seed rules and regulations. As a result, however, policymakers in many countries have expressed impatience with the slow progress on enhancing the contribution of a modern seed industry to the overarching goal of increasing agricultural productivity growth. One reason for this slow progress may be that policymakers are insufficiently cognizant of the trade-offs associated with rules and regulations required to effectively govern a modern seed industry. This suggests the need for new data and analysis to improve the understanding of how seed systems function. This paper explores these issues in the context of Asia's rapidly growing seed industry, with illustrations from seed markets for maize and several other crops, to highlight current gaps in the metrics used to analyze performance, competition, and innovation. The paper provides a finite set of indicators to inform policymaking on seed system design and monitoring, and explores how these indicators can be used to inform current policy debates in the region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Tigyit coal mine and coal-fired power plant perpetuates an everyday violence. • Everyday violence includes the loss of experienced and potential benefits. • Environmental health and human health violations are synonymous. • Everyday violence occurs through material and structural pathways. Resource extraction sites are violent. They often begin in violence and operate through violence. In this paper we build on ethnographic research in southern Shan State, Myanmar and focus on Tigyit Coal Mine and Power Plant to highlight how civil society activist have conceptualized violence. We argue that through the processes of coal production and the operations of a coal-fired power plant, an everyday violence emerges. This violence results from the physical byproducts of building and operating a coal mine and power plant and the structural impacts of the policies used to manage the project. Everyday violence offers a grounded perspective that looks at the daily, accumulating, and interconnected environmental and life-making impacts from extractive industries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Germany's 2017 NetzDG law is an example of 'new school speech regulation' (Balkin, 2014), which restricts speech by coercing intermediaries into censoring users, rather than coercing speakers directly. It is the first such measure which specifically targets hate speech on social media, by requiring large platforms to operate complaints procedures which ensure illegal content is rapidly removed. Numerous other countries have since adopted similar regulations, indicating that states increasingly turn to new school speech regulation as a regulatory strategy to tackle hate speech on social media. This paper aims to evaluate the effectiveness of new school speech regulation in as a regulatory strategy to address online hate speech, taking NetzDG as a case study. A review of relevant empirical literature shows that many features of social media platforms actively promote or encourage hate speech. Key factors include algorithmic recommendations, which frequently promote hateful ideologies; social affordances which let users encourage or disseminate hate speech by others; anonymous, impersonal environments; and the absence of media 'gatekeepers'. In mandating faster content deletion, NetzDG only addresses the last of these, ignoring other relevant factors. Moreover, reliance on individual user complaints to trigger platforms' obligations means hate speech will often escape deletion. Interviews with relevant civil society organisations confirm these flaws of the NetzDG model. From their perspectives, NetzDG has had little impact on the prevalence or visibility of online hate speech, and its reporting mechanisms fail to help affected communities. NetzDG represents an incremental, narrow approach to a complex sociotechnical problem which requires more fundamental regulatory reform. In this regard, it shows the limitations of censorship-based new school speech regulation. Rules which assert state authority by prescribing censorship of narrowly-defined content categories are ill-suited to large-scale, networked, algorithmically-curated social media, where other governance mechanisms influence user behaviour more than content deletion. The paper advocates a more systemic and preventive regulatory approach. Platforms should be required to take public interest considerations into account in all design and governance processes, aiming to shape platform environments to actively discourage users from posting or viewing hate speech, rather than simply deleting it afterwards. • Germany's 2017 NetzDG law is taken as a case study of 'new school speech regulation'. • The paper demonstrates that this is not an effective way of regulating online hate speech. • Removing 'illegal content' ignores platform features which promote hate speech. • Advocates a more systemic and preventive approach to hate speech regulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper engages with state, citizen, and civil society responses to refugees in Budapest and Hungary more widely in order to 'provincialise' European migration policy and politics. We introduce grounded, eastern 'frontline' realities and histories to complicate European claims to universality and hierarchies of "goodness". Through ethnographic work that documents and analyses refugee reception after the so-called 2015 refugee crisis, we shed light on the diverse forms of existing crises affecting the EU. These conflicts involve contestations over i) who is deemed European (questions that have been asked both of migrants and East Europeans), and ii) the 'Europeanisation' project as it has entailed new governance and funding arrangements for the development of civil society organisations. These new governance modes have attempted to re-shape city-state-EU dynamics, purposefully eliding problematic nation-state responses to refugees. These have heightened opposition to EU power-creep from conservative governments. Through an empirically rich discussion of the Hungarian context in relation to Europe, this paper speaks to the broader spectrum of grounded and politicised populist responses that have challenged the EU's governance and future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the last two decades, China has experienced urban redevelopment at an unprecedented scale and speed. The state-sponsored property-led redevelopment pattern has been widely deployed as dominant urban regeneration strategy in many Chinese cities. Meanwhile, more and more attention has been paid to the protest and resistance of civil society to the tremendous demolition and eviction during the implementation of such strategies. Investigating the process, content and context of urban regeneration strategies in China provides fertile ground to understand the public participation process, specific plight and challenge of decision-making in urban regeneration in China. This reflects the logic and trend of urban governance in China within existing regulatory practices and institutional settings during the transformation period. As the understanding of strategy and problem are concomitant to each other, problem framing in urban regeneration is pivotal to understand urban regeneration strategies. Starting from this point, the object of this paper is to explore what the problems are, how they are defined and perceived by different actors, what strategies are promoted as solutions, and how they are legitimated or excluded. As problem framing is social construction through discourse by different actors, such close relationship of discourse and problem proves the necessity of undertaking discourse analysis as research approach to understand problem framing, also the process, content and context of urban regeneration strategies. To understand specific problems and challenges of urban regeneration strategies implemented in China’s inner cities, this study inquires a controversial and well known redevelopment project called Enning Road, which has been the first “pioneer” in terms of comprehensively redeveloping old town areas in Guangzhou since the last decade. This project has received tremendous criticism, and it can be characterized by a continuous adjustment of the unstable strategies that were applied and a frequent stagnation due to social resistance from 2006 to 2015. It will demonstrate how different discourse coalitions are formed by the government, scholars, journalists, residents and NGOs and other stakeholders. For this purpose, the paper will discuss their shared interests, beliefs or rationalities and the way they use storylines to frame problems. In this context, a lot of local knowledge and expert knowledge is activated and utilized to construct those storylines. The urban regeneration process of Enning Road involves continuously changing problem definitions and continuous experimentation, translating into emergent adaptive strategies. It also shows the interplay between different ways of problem framing, and the complex interaction between problem framing and strategy promotion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to provide a global and comparative overview of Public Participation in Environmental Matters in the sense of the Aarhus convention. The method applied is an in-depth literature review in particular of research papers, legal documents, policy papers, which was implemented by means of electronic databases (Web of Science, Scopus) as well as by internet research using terms such as public participation, access to information, participation in decision-making and access to justice in combination with continent names. The results were then analysed according to the five continents. They were then divided as well as discussed regarding general aspects, access to information, access to decision-making and access to justice. The results for the five continents show regionally and nationally within the three pillars, access to information, participation in decision-making and access to justice large differences. While access to information is widely legally established within all regions on all continents, access to justice is the one sector of the three mentioned in Principle 10 of the Rio Declaration which has obtained the least reflection in legislation and implementation so far. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Los Angeles (LA), food waste is at record levels. This has negative outcomes for food insecurity, land use, and methane production associated with climate change. To overcome these challenges, a range of government, private, and civil society organizations (CSOs) have developed programs to reduce food waste. With the decentralization, privatization, and devolution of food waste policies to local actors, CSOs have emerged as key institutions in the governance of food waste in many contexts. However, it is unclear whether CSOs have the capacity to reduce food waste and food insecurity, empower communities, or promote social change. To this end, this paper critically analyzes a local food rescue CSO as a case study in order to understand the challenges associated with food waste governance in LA and the roles that CSOs play in food waste reduction. Through an analysis of interview and participant observation data in LA’s food system, this paper examines the ways that food waste is produced, regulated, and reused by institutions in LA. Findings illustrate that although local CSOs have expanded their food waste reduction programs, the impact of their operations may be limited. In addition, while CSOs rescue some food, they operate in conjunction with food waste surpluses and the overabundance of food, and do little to reduce the root cause of food waste or food insecurity. Although the structural causes of food waste are arguably beyond the scope of some CSOs to change, data in this paper suggest that some CSOs may contribute indirectly to neoliberal governance when they romanticize the power of local communities, depoliticize food issues, and focus on individual personal responsibility. For these reasons, this research suggests that food waste may only be reduced significantly with more government regulation of the institutions which produce food waste, namely food businesses and households. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a critical engagement with current initiatives for ethically-labeled goods in South Africa, thus offering an intervention in a literature on ethical consumption that has previously prioritized the global North. Through an interview-based methodology supported by focus groups in the Western Cape, the paper attends specifically to the strategies shaping recent forms of ethical consumption in South Africa on the part of business and civil society. Campaigns and strategies associated with three of the most prominent ethical labeling initiatives in South Africa—Proudly South African, Fairtrade Label South Africa and the Southern African Sustainable Seafood Initiative (SASSI)—are evaluated. Barnett et al.’s (2011: 90) notion of “mobilizing the ethical consumer” is brought into conversation with ethical consumption literature on local embeddedness in order to assess the ways in which the organizations responsible for these initiatives combine globalizing business and political networks of responsibility with local institutions and values in South Africa. The role played by the discursive construction of a growing South African ‘middle class’ is also acknowledged as part of the process of encouraging ethical consumption on the part of these actors. In conclusion, it is suggested that understanding ethical consumption in South Africa, as elsewhere, requires sensitivity to both transnational networks of globalizing responsibility and localized expressions of ethical consumption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Ecosystem services and processes play key, if overlooked, roles in all policy areas. • Realising the values of ecosystems requires embedding across all societal interests. • Collaborative learning amongst senior players helped identify actionable outcomes. • All sectors of society are key role players in achieving this society-wide transformation. • Exemplar ecosystem-based approaches show the feasibility of societal transformation. Recent high-profile analyses of trajectories and prognoses of ecosystem decline around the world have called for a renewed focus on embedding the values of the natural world across all areas of public policy. This paper reports the results of a UK-based deliberative process involving experts from a wide range of policy domains and across societal sectors: government departments, associated agencies, national and international NGOs, professional institutions, academia and independent experts. A symposium, based on a collaborative learning approach, explored instances in which ecosystem values have successfully been embedded into public policy, identified challenges to their more widespread embedding despite commitments to do so over generational timescales, and took a backcasting approach to develop actionable outcomes required to deliver transformation change across state and civil society. Emergent themes were expressed in social, technological, environmental, economic and political terms. Recommendations for interventions in complex social-ecological systems are cross-sectoral in scope and will necessarily entail multiple agents of change, well beyond governmental leadership, within any given sphere of societal activity and interest. We identify strategic challenges for, and between, a spectrum of societal policy areas, many currently overlooking ecosystem dependencies, impacts and potential benefits. Reflections on the collaborative learning approach are also provided. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Two long-term trends characterized the response to the influx of asylum seekers in rural Sweden in 2015. First, current integration policies with an increasing focus on the individual migrant, especially in relation to education, employment and housing, provided the framework for the response. Second, the shift of rural governance from state control to collaborative arrangements with nonstate actors, enabled the unprecedented involvement of civil society in the reception and integration of asylum-seekers in rural areas. The consequences of the confluence of these two approaches are most visible in rural areas. In this paper, we explore the new landscape of collaborative governance in relation to migrant reception and integration and ask: what kind of space for maneuver might be available for migrants in the context of collaborative governance of integration in rural Europe? We argue that the new context of rural governance in tandem with integration policies focusing on individual migrants/ families rather than also considering group and ethnic belongings can leave newcomers at the mercy of an informal and unknown institutional terrain of collaborative governance, one that can exacerbate their vulnerability and lead to a situation of "double isolation"- from co-ethnic networks as well as from local society. • What space do the current politics of integration and rural governance provide for migrants to establish themselves. • Focus of integration policies on the individual and blurred boundaries of rural governance create uncertainties and confusion. • Distance from co-ethnic groups as well as decision-makers creates a sense of double-isolation. • Both local inhabitants and migrants need to be part of the conversations not only on integration but also rural development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The defense industry has unique features involving national sovereignty. Despite the characteristics that led to the separation of the military and civil spheres, since the 1990s, the number of dual-use projects has been growing. Taking into account that Portugal is a small European country, this paper analyzes the relationships within the defense industry in order to determine how university-industry-government relationships (the Triple Helix) function in this specific industry. The analysis of 145 projects of the Portuguese Ministry of Defense led to the following conclusions: first, academia was represented in more than 90% of the projects, and 40% of those projects have a dual-use application; second, there is a predominance of knowledge production, dissemination and application, for which the university's institutional sphere is essential and third, the Triple Helix system evolves into a network of relationships that involve projects with both civil and military applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• The role of scientists in the design of a multistakeholder partnership, the "4 per 1000″ initiative, is analysed. • The involvement of soil scientists leads to keep discussions at a technical level while the initial ambition was political. • The technical focus reinforces the credibility of the initiative but leads some civil society organisations to stay outside. • The case study leads to support the idea of accountability as an integral part of scientific engagement in the policy process. The proliferation of multistakeholder initiatives is deemed to be a key vehicle for the implementation of international agreements for sustainable development. This is the case with the "4 per 1000: Soils for Food Security and Climate" initiative (4PM), launched in March 2015 by French Minister Stéphane Le Foll, whose aim is to increase soil organic carbon (SOC) stocks worldwide, in order to simultaneously address climate change mitigation, adaptation, and food security issues. This paper explores the knowledge dynamics at play and the role scientists played in the early development of the initiative. It shows that the strong involvement of soil scientists in the design of 4 PM, as well as in the enrolment of other stakeholders, has had a dual consequence. On the one hand, it has reinforced the initiative's credibility by keeping most discussions at a mere technical level, considering soil organic carbon sequestration as the main (if not the sole) proxy for climate change mitigation, adaptation and food security. On the other hand, this technical approach has led the initiative to be hardly able to enrol representatives from peasant and familial agricultures, who have criticized the absence of clear definitions of the type of agricultural models the 4 PM intends to promote. We show that this has had detrimental consequences on the results of the 4 PM initiative, and we discuss the implications both for the framing of voluntary multistakeholder initiatives and for the engagement of scientists in such settings, notably in terms of their accountability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social innovations (SIs) are new ideas that create collaboration or new social relationships and thus meet local needs. The purpose of the research is to understand the role of SIs and community-based quadruple-helix actors in rural development. The research question is how do community-based quadruple-helix actors contribute to the formation of SI networks in the context of rural development? The triple helix model represents innovations as emerging in cooperation between three helices (university, industry, and government). The quadruple helix (QH) adds civil society as a fourth helix. Using the QH model in rural development requires a broad definition of the helices. In addition to universities, all types of educational and research institutes are important. In addition, different types of public organisations are important, not just the government. We define the fourth helix as representing civil society as a community, not just individual citizens. Our main argument is that the QH model fosters understanding of the variety of formal and informal ways in which SI enables societal development in rural areas. We examine the relevant relationships with the help of the strands of literature on SI and QH, and also a case study on projects conducted under the LEADER programme (Aktion Österbotten) in Finland. The case study is based on a narrative approach inspired by the learning history method, with the identification of critical incidents, which help us to identify how the QH evolves throughout successful community-driven SIs. The narrative approach reveals the significance of informal communities in transforming QH relations. Many projects under the LEADER programme aim to strengthen the attraction of communities by promoting local identity, including broad participation in collective events, such as enjoying nature, cultural events, sports, and other social activities. Many of those activities have the potential to spill over into other types of SI, such as entrepreneurship oriented towards tourism and new solutions to social needs. The decisive factor for the success of the projects was the involvement of local communities. The local knowledge of the communities was nourished in the projects in interaction with other local and extra-local QH actors. Accordingly, the main contribution of the paper is combining the notions of SI and the QH, and presenting the fourth helix as a community enabling rural development. We call this rural development model the community-driven QH model. • A rural development model combines social innovation, community and quadruple helix. • Social innovation networks create new development opportunities for local communities. • Social innovation processes can awaken latent communities. • Learning history method reveals the significance of local communities. • Rural communities collaborate with extra-regional organisations and communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]